Praying for peace (a prayer for worship by Jill Duffield)

Outlook editor Jill Duffield wrote this prayer for peace as tensions rise between the United States and North Korea, and a white nationalist rally is planned Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she lives. Congregations are free to use this prayer in worship.

Dear God,

The sabers rattlers are raising their voices along with their swords, vowing more than an eye for an eye and threatening to blind the world. Fear mounts, rhetoric grows fevered and pride threatens to destroy any remaining remnant of servant leadership. As our anxiety grows and we worry about what might happen next, speak again your word of beyond-understanding-peace.

Help us to hear and heed the words of our Risen Lord, “Peace I give to you. My peace I leave with you.” Remind us relentlessly that you bless the peacemakers and prod us to be among the blessed.

God of power and might, as we wonder when wars will cease and justice will no longer be denied, infuse us with the Holy Spirit so that we will speak the words you give us, become the ambassadors of reconciliation you require of us, and passionately love the world in which you have placed us.

God of grace and God of glory, pour out your power on us, your people, so that we will have the courage to disrupt the narrative of violence by proclaiming in word and deed the life-giving story of sacrificial love made know to us through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. Amen.

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